Symbolics

Symbolics was the name of the (now defunct) computer company in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They manufactured a line of Lisp machines which were computers optimized to run the programming language Lisp.

They were a spin-off from MIT, taking the results of the CADR project (special-purpose hardware) and ZetaLisp? for the software.

Their initial computers (the 3600, 3670, 3645, etc.) had a 68000 single-board computer (known as the "Front End Processor", or FEP) which started the main computer up. The main processor was a multi-chip board.

Later they produced a special-purpose chip which was integrated into cards which plugged into [Sun computer]? and Macintosh computers to allow them to run Symbolics software.

Their programming environment was called "Genera" towards the end of the company's life (previous name?).

They used ZetaLisp? initially, but implemented "Symbolics Common Lisp" once the Common Lisp standard was released.

Their implementation of Emacs was called "ZWEI", an acronym for "Zwei was Eine initially". "EINE" (acronym for "Eine is not Emacs") was (if memory serves) a student project at MIT for the CADR.

Many of the big names of Lisp and computers worked there:

• [David Moon]?

They sold well initially because of the AI boom in the mid-1980s. When this fad died down, they stayed around due to the excellent computer video generation software.

Their computers were also used as the first "controller" computers for the [Thinking machines]? brand of massively parallel computers.

They went out of business largely due to the fact that they couldn't produce new hardware as fast as the "generic" computer manufacturers, and so their hardware-speedup lead was swiftly eroded.